What are benefits of making a private/obscure incident/offense public?

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What are benefits of making a private/obscure incident/offense public?

If someone offends you behind closed doors, breaks the law civilly/criminally, or exhibits unflattering behavior that shocks the mind, what good could come from publicizing it?

Example: A telephone customer service operator is recorded cursing, yelling, attempting to intimidate, and lying to a customer.

A restaurant worker displayed bad customer service, profiling of customers, and preferential treatment. Those behaviors are then detailed in a privately owned website about the establishment, and additionally on review sites like "Yelp".

A former employee of a company expresses terrible times had during previous employment. They express their thoughts/experiences publicly on a privately owned website and on review sites. They never had to abide by a confidentiality/non-disclosure agreement, and are fully allowed to express themselves.

Re: What are benefits of making a private/obscure incident/offense public?

Re: What are benefits of making a private/obscure incident/offense public?

Well... particularly here in .za, the stores and gyms and ISPs and banks and etc blow off angry customers left, right and center without resolving the problem at hand.

However, once said angry customer pops along to local consumer watchdog hellopeter.com and posts their story there, many of the unhelpful suppliers of said services seem to immediately spring into action and deliver the goods (or the refund, or the service, or whatever they should have done in the first place), frequently with very public apologies attached.

It's a shit way of having to get the stuff you've paid for done, but hot damn does it ever work...

Re: What are benefits of making a private/obscure incident/offense public?

Originally Posted by Pcp3t3

If someone offends you behind closed doors, breaks the law civilly/criminally, or exhibits unflattering behavior that shocks the mind, what good could come from publicizing it?

Hopefully others can learn from it?

Example: A telephone customer service operator is recorded cursing, yelling, attempting to intimidate, and lying to a customer.

If the customer has a lawsuit against the company for the operator's behavior the company may be able to prove that the behavior in question was NOT part of the training but merely an individual's uncalled for stupidity. They may be able to protect themselves and help punish the guilty party.

A restaurant worker displayed bad customer service, profiling of customers, and preferential treatment. Those behaviors are then detailed in a privately owned website about the establishment, and additionally on review sites like "Yelp".

Potential patrons of that restaurant can be warned about said worker and maybe consider taking their business elsewhere. Also, the owner/manager of the restaurant can train the worker or release him/her from employment if training is not an option.

A former employee of a company expresses terrible times had during previous employment. They express their thoughts/experiences publicly on a privately owned website and on review sites. They never had to abide by a confidentiality/non-disclosure agreement, and are fully allowed to express themselves.

At the least, they are able to vent a little steam at perceived injustices..... maybe even get a little better perspective as they work through it. Maybe they have an actual grievance against the company, or maybe they were in the wrong and are able to realize that after typing it all out and reading it back (if they bother to proof read what they are about to post). Otherwise, potential future employers learn a bit about the employees work ethic in his own words.

The funny thing is your example are about public incidents. The customer service operator at work. The restaurant worker, again at work. Even the former employee discussing his time at work. None of them is a private incident and the only thing that makes them obscure is the lack of info about each supposition. As for the benefit of publicly discussing each.... Well, as I mentioned above others benefit from the knowledge gained from those incidents.

Re: What are benefits of making a private/obscure incident/offense public?

Word of mouth reputations have always been an important part of businesses. If people are aware of poor performance they can take their dollars elsewhere. With the invention of the internet peoples opinions reach a lot more people as they post positive and negative comments on web sites, businesses know they'd better perform or be gone....